Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (1926) (Themes (The "Lost…
Ernest Hemingway's
The Sun Also Rises
(1926)
A homodiegetic narrator: Jake Barnes
The focaliser: Jake Barnes
Themes
The "Lost Generation" (cf. Gertrude Stein)
Symbolised by drinking, partying, searching for meaning in a meaningless world, being obsessed with death and sex, etc., in short: decadence and hedonistic behaviour.
= The young people (esp. men) who died in the war and those who fought in the war but survived, albeit mentally and physically wounded. The latter feel alienated in the post-war society and often suffer from shell shock and trauma.
Also symbolised by having a lack of direction in life, not keeping an agenda, 'drifiting' through the city, etc. (25)
According to Stein: the emptying out of all meaning. (!)
Religion
Jake's problematic relationship with his faith (85, 131)
Biblical references, religious symbols
Spain: a sort of pilgrimage, identity search
Broken masculinity
The idea of nature as an eternal force
The fishing trip in Burguete
Bullfighting
An aestheticised ritual: no violence
The ultimate fascination: death (also on the part of the matador)!
Masculinity and power: man vs. (the most male) animal (nature), i.e. the bull
Sexuality
Being an expatriate
The Great War. (14)
The author
An equal rights household: H.'s father did part of the household chores.
Both H.'s parents: energetic and hard-working
Fascination for the human (male) body, latent homoeroticism
Participated in the war as a volunteer for the Red Cross in Italy. Got wounded!
The writing style
The "iceberg principle", "theory of omission": submergence
Suggestively implicit vs. verbosely explicit (e.g. Dickens)
Factual adjectives, an understated style, almost no hypotaxis (subordination), etc.
The writing style symbolises Jake's suppression of emotions and trauma (which is a Masculine Thing to do).
The suggestive writing style // the suggested presence of WWI. (!)
Epitaphs
Gertrude Stein's quotation re: the "Lost Generation"
Ecclesiastes' quotation out of the Old Testament
The idea of revival after decay
Nature as a force that survives when humanity dies
The cyclical character of history, nature, time, etc.*
*After this generation dies, a new one will arrive (e.g. Pedro Romero).
The novel
Main inspiration: H.'s 1923 (July) stay during the Fiesta of San Fermin in Pamplona